Apr 20, 2017 · Please step up the speed of your activity. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. move/step up a gear. to start to work or play more effectively or quickly than before With just five lengths to go, the German swimmer stepped up a gear and edged ahead to win the race. Cambridge Idioms Dictionary. step on the gas

Apr 28, 2017 · COCA BNC speeded up 178 139 sped up 324 8 That is, when it comes to the phrasal verb to speed up , the preference is not anywhere as strong in the US, and is outright reversed in the UK. As to usage over time, the Corpus of Historical American English paints the following picture:

Nov 23, 2015 · to increase the speed or velocity of; cause to move faster. The Free Dictionary. Ngram accelerate the metabolism. Etymology: Fasten derives from the original Old English meaning of fast ( firm, fix, secure), fast meaning quick appeared later, in the 16th century. Fasten:

I've always believed the past tense of sync ("I sync my phone with my computer") to be synced ("I synced my phone with my computer yesterday"). This question would seem to suggest either synced or

Nov 1, 2015 · Speed 2 [countable, uncountable] the rate at which something happens or is done. This course is designed so that students can progress at their own speed. Speed: 3. [uncountable] the quality of being quick or rapid. The train began to pick up speed (= go faster). Increasing your walking speed will help to exercise your heart.

Mixing these up produces some odd results: "Rapid rabbits" are comprehensible but more predatory that we are used to rabbits being. "Quickness limits" Nonsense. "Quick delivery?" Something else entirely. A baby has been born. Further evidence that "quick" wants to …

Jan 23, 2012 · Low speed is licensed by the UP/DOWN metaphor cluster, which, like all metaphors, allows us to symbolically project some feature or percept of the human body (in this case, our built-in gravitational perception) to other judgementally differential binary concepts, like GOOD/BAD, FAST/SLOW, MALE/FEMALE, and the like. E.g:

Jun 25, 2014 · an up-to-date account, but not when the compound comes after the noun: His music was also well known in England. Their figures are up to date. From Oxford Dictionaries via Adverbs and Hyphens by Maeve Maddox for Daily Writing Tips. In this case the noun is myself and before the adjective, so no hyphen.

Speed up the lunch line. You are talking about making the lunch-serving process more efficient, and your example says you are measuring that by how long (presumably) the queue is. So. Improving the serving process means reducing the number of people in the line, or the waiting time on it. "I'm hungry, dammit. Send in the operations managers!"

Oct 1, 2015 · Once oriented, employees, both veterans and rookies need to be trained and updated to bring them up [back] (in the case of veterans) to speed. To train/verb: Def 19: to make proficient by instruction and practice, as in some art, profession, or work: To update/verb: Def 3: to bring (a person, organization, etc.) up to date on a particular subject: